Linked In Guide V8

LinkedIn for Business Success An Extended Abbreviated Guide

The following information is based on Gordon BDM’s work withlocal and international clients in the accountancy, advertising, callcentre, financial services, IT, legal, recruitment and voluntarysectors. This information is not fact; merely our opinion. However,we’ve lived LinkedIn for 5 years and don’t know of any othercompanies providing the services we do, so feel justified we arewriting with authority.

Adam GordonDirectorGordon BDM LtdAugust 2010

Founded in July 2009, Gordon BDM’s team works with B2B clients across the UK and internationally to help them win new customers, using unique, modern techniques.

London 020 3326 8787 Glasgow 07870 268 288 www.winningwork.com [email protected] Design: www.FONDA.co.uk

WinningWork.comGordonBDM

Preliminaries

LinkedIn is for collaboration and networking. So it says. Wesay you might choose to use LinkedIn to win customers, getheadhunted, hire people, seek and share best practice,research companies or people, demonstrate your expertise,find suppliers or just keep on top of the hot topics in your line.LinkedIn’s a movement, a culture and a way of working.

LinkedIn is not a ‘social network’ exactly. Jeff Weiner,LinkedIn’s CEO doesn’t allow that term to describe LinkedInand we don’t use it either. It looks and functions quite likeFacebook but don’t be tempted to use it like Facebook.Keep it professional.

Who’s on it? It’s not just for early career professionals.Barack Obama’s on there. As is Bill Gates. In fact, there arevery few well-known figures who aren’t there. LinkedIn’s amarket full of budget-holders, line-managers and decision-makers ready to be influenced to make good buyingdecisions. The world’s changing fast as we progressivelymore embrace and embed LinkedIn into our working lives.

Concepts

“‘Nothing avails but Perfection’ may be spelt shorter: Paralysis.” Winston Churchill

(This is for lawyers in particular) Too many professionalseither don’t sign up to LinkedIn or take membership and do nothing because they are procrastinating about what not to do. Take some advice from Nike and ‘just do it’... If you don’t, your competitors will. And they’ll be talking to your customers...

This is an old concept but as valid today as ever. In order forsomeone to buy from you (or hire you or recommend youto their close associates) they need to trust you. In order totrust you they need to like you. In order to like you theyneed to acknowledge you. LinkedIn is the best tool forprofessionals to gain acknowledgement with a wider circle,peer group, community, industry, alumni pool, profession orgeography.

Six degrees of separation... Rubbish!

It used to be said (and still is by some who haven’t cottonedon yet) that you were only separated from Kevin Bacon (oranyone else for that matter) through 6 steps at most; AKA‘six degrees of separation’. This is no longer true. We’re allmuch closer than ever before. Mostly everyone who’sanyone is within your direct reach. I no longer need anintroduction to you and you no longer need an introductionto me. I/we can do it ourselves. We don’t need to rely onothers and when we do connect, we’ve come to a jointdecision to do so. I’ve approached you and you’ve permittedme to speak. Now not everyone’s comfortable with makingtheir own introductions and building direct relationships inthis way but LinkedIn makes this abundantly easier.

The currency of ‘Free’

Everyone on LinkedIn has something to offer. Everyone hasexperience that is interesting to other LinkedIn members.When you give people that ‘something’, for nothing, youdevelop associated goodwill. People warm to you, trust yourword, your authenticity and you set yourself up as the ‘go-to’ person for your subject.

2 LinkedIn for Business Success


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The relationship pyramid

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You can give something for nothing through your status updates, on LinkedInGroups’ discussion boards, via LinkedIn Q&A, through LinkedIn Events andusing other inbuilt tools.

Between May and August 2010, I handed out over 1,600 copies of thisLinkedIn miniguide to people who requested it after I made it available on 4 LinkedIn Groups.

I didn’t previously know hardly any of these 1,600 people. Unfortunately alot of them know me as ‘Gordon’ now (rather than Adam which is actuallymy name!) but at least they know me.

This screenshot shows 200 people had commented on my offer on oneLinkedIn Group alone. This kept me very much in people’s minds as aspecialist.

Because of the activity I created from one post on the McKinsey QuarterlyGroup I was ranked as ‘top influencer’.



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Think carefully about what you can offer. What do youknow about that people will find both interesting anduseful? Now take it to your audience on LinkedIn.

Be curious

Use LinkedIn to find out other peoples’ opinions. Postquestions and discussions on LinkedIn Groups. Find out howpeople do things and what they think best practice lookslike. Send messages directly to people who may haveanswers. Research people, customers, intermediaries andcompetitors.

The people who get the most out of LinkedIn have a naturalcuriosity OR learn to have such.

People have egos... Flattery gets you somewhere(sometimes)

People are much more likely to react positively if you tellthem you would value their opinion. They will take morenotice if you say their LinkedIn profile looks interesting.

Incorrect approach: “Please meet me next Tuesday so I cantell you how good I am at my job and you will want to usemy services.”

Correct approach: “I see from your profile that you havesome fantastic international experience. It would be great to hear your views about the latest Sarbox issues. Let meknow if you have half an hour for a coffee at some pointnext week.”

The main point here is, really think about the language youuse. What will people respond to better? Don’t besycophantic - that doesn’t go down well in any quarters butbuild bridges, let people know they have value and buildrelationships.

Lead the conversation

In series 3 of Mad Men, Donald Draper said to ConradHilton, “If you don’t like what’s being said, change theconversation.” I love this line. And when I first heard it, itmade me immediately think of LinkedIn Groups. Now, youdon’t need to dislike the existing conversation but youshould use LinkedIn Groups and other LinkedIn channels tocreate and lead people into the type of conversation yourelish. Get people involved. The right type of people. Andmake sure you position yourself as the expert.

Man Marking

LinkedIn’s not just for the most senior executives. Anorganisation would do very well to engender an ‘entire firm’approach to business development. If your most seniorpeople connect on LinkedIn with your clients’ and targets’most senior executives, your mid-ranking client teamsconnect with their peers and your early career professionalslink to their upwardly mobile counterparts, you will havecreated a true man-marking approach. That way, you willget a true and full picture of your markets and be in aposition to enhance client relations not just now but also for the future.



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“If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”

Who’s on LinkedIn?

You might find this surprising. I don’t...



Yes, look at your contacts’ contacts. This will be very useful in helping youmap your world. Subliminally you’ll take a lot of this information in and it willcome to your conscious when you need it. However, don’t make assumptionsabout people and their LinkedIn contacts.

Because everyone has a different personality and a different LinkedInapproach, some people connect with a wide network and others only withtrusted contacts. Just because someone is connected to an individual youwant to know, it doesn’t automatically mean they are close enough to referyou or even pass on information for you.

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Your Profile - Our Rules

- Make sure you add a photo. People are less likely to want to interact with a mysterious, faceless internetpage. If people are searching for an expert, find yourprofile which has no photo and the profile of someonewith comparable skills and a photo, your competitor ismuch more likely to receive contact before you. It doesn’tmatter what you look like. Unless your head has beenchopped off, there’s no valid excuse.

- Ensure your job title is understandable to people outwith your organisation or sector. If it containsuncommon acronyms, spell them out. If your job titlecontains jargon, change it. (But check your boss is OKwith you doing so).

- Add information to your ‘Status update’ section regularly - at least once a week. The purpose here is toattempt to capture your connections’ attention. Perhapstalk about a project you’re working on, an expert view oreven some recent thought-leadership relevant to your joband industry. If you have a work-related blog, you canalert your contacts to new posts using this section too.

- Clearly, you should list your current job but remember to list any non-executive or official advisory positions too.People will respect this breadth of activity.

- If you have a number of job titles or there are multiple ways of explaining your role, add these all - thiscontributes significantly to your listing at the top ofsearches. If your official job title is ‘Finance Director’, add‘Chief Financial Officer’ also. If your official job title is‘Sales Director’, you might want to add ‘BusinessDevelopment Director’ also.

- In terms of your previous jobs, if you have more than you’d like to broadcast, perhaps only list the last two orthe two which have been most significant, relevant ormaybe prestigious.

- That said, if you’re proud of your career history, list them all. Many people search for ex-colleagues orexperts by using the ‘company’ search criteria and thiscould lead to interesting enquiries.

- If you previously worked for a competitor business, list this, but don’t go into much detail about all thesuccesses you achieved. You don’t want viewers of your LinkedIn profile to develop so much of a positiveimpression of your ex employer that they also get a call...

- List all your education. Some people place major value on academic qualifications. This might make thedifference between someone interesting getting in touchor otherwise.

- Include the school and university you went to. People search for former class mates to re-connect.

- If you have some close professional connections on LinkedIn, do ask them to recommend you if you feel this is appropriate. Many LinkedIn users readrecommendations with great interest and respect theopinions of others.

- Your summary should be comprehensive but easy to understand. Write in the first person and make sure youappear confident and impressive but not boastful. Asksomeone to review your summary for a second opinionbefore you make your profile public. Others are oftenbetter placed to judge the tone of your summary.



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Make sure youappear confidentand impressive but not boastful.

- Use the ‘specialties’ section to add all the key-words relevant to your role. If you’re an accountant forexample, you might list your key-words as such“management accounting, budgeting, forecasting, fixedassets, inventory control”. There is no need to write insentences here - comma-separated key-words are fine.

- In ‘additional information’ add a link to your website’s homepage and potentially to the section of your websitemost relevant to you or your specialty. Probably don’tadd links to Facebook or other personal sites. This justisn’t appropriate in most circumstances. Do add links toother information people will find interesting. If you havea Just Giving page, add a link to this. If you are onTwitter for professional purposes or maintain a blog, linkto these here.

- Under ‘interests’ I would encourage you to give a little information about what you do out of work. People willfind it interesting. Perhaps don’t list your favouritefootball team or activities that some people might findobjectionable but if you’re an ice skater, twitcher or lovebaking, this could just start a conversation. Give peoplematerial to use to make contact.

- Join Groups on LinkedIn by all means but if you join loads of them, make most of their logos ‘invisible’ onyour page - otherwise people will think you have nothingbetter to do than sit on LinkedIn all day (actually not abad thing in our opinion but some might form otheropinions!).

- List all ‘Honors and Awards’. But if you have many, perhaps only list those most impressive or perhaps restrictthis to those achieved in the last few years. You don’twant to look like you are showing off or ‘collecting’Honors and Awards for the sake of it. You also don’twant to dilute the impact of your most impressiveHonors and Awards by surrounding them with lessinteresting accolades.

- Unless you want to avoid contact with prospective customers, make it easy for them to get in touch.Add a mobile, direct dial, email address, co-ordinates for carrier pigeon and any other way for people to get in touch.

Meeting new People

We firmly believe the best opportunity for you in usingLinkedIn is in creating acknowledgement between you andothers and taking these new relationships offline. Here is ourmethodology for doing so, if you’re a confident networker.And even if you’re not, our approach will remove any nervesyou have about making that initial contact.

- Our research suggests that a LinkedIn connection with another person simply means they are giving youpermission to speak to them and nothing more. It doesn’t mean they want to meet you (yet) and itcertainly doesn’t mean they want to buy from you (yet).It’s up to you to influence your LinkedIn connections in a courteous and intelligent manner in order to reallymake rain.

- There are 70m+ people on LinkedIn at the time of typing (August 2010).



25% of LinkedInusers will neverconnect withyou if they don’tknow you.

50% of people will accept yourLinkedIn invitation if they feelthey may benefit from makingyour acquaintance. These arethe people you want to reach.They are discerning about theircontacts but the door is open for you if your approach is just right...

25% willconnect withanyone fromMars to the ToraBora mountains.

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- You need to use the advanced people search facility (top right on your home page) to find all those people whoare relevant to you.

- The most useful search criteria include ‘job title’, ‘location’ and ‘industries’. This will help you to find allthose you don’t yet know but want to. If you workfor a B2B PR agency covering Norfolk for example, youmight want to search for people with ‘marketing’ in theirjob titles, 50 miles from ‘NR1’ and tick the appropriatesectors in the ‘industries’ section (i.e. accounting,banking, business supplies...).

- Once you have created your list, you will now need to select those people who you really do want to connectwith. Bear in mind that just because you haven’t yetheard of a company, doesn’t mean you should rule themout as relevant to you without some research.

- Now you will invite your chosen prospective clients to connect with you on LinkedIn.

- When you invite someone to connect with you on LinkedIn, the site asks you to identify how you know theother person. This is to prevent spam. You must NOTcheck the box that says ‘colleague’ or ‘friend’ if this isnot the case. You will look disingenuous to the recipientas they will know what you have selected.

- You must check the ‘other’ box and then enter their email address.

- Use your normal research procedures to find the prospective connection’s email address. Google will beinvaluable in this process.

- Before you send your invitation to connect, make sure your message is tailored for the recipient. Make sureit’s polite. Make sure it gives the other person reason tofeel there’s value in accepting your invitation to connect.An example may say:

“Dear X, I am a tax expert working with many clientsin your industry in Norfolk. I noticed your profile andthought we may have some interesting perspectivesto share in the future. In the meantime I’d like toinvite you to join my professional network onLinkedIn. Yours sincerely, Y.”

- This example has demonstrated rapport, a little flattery and offered an invitation. Compared to the defaultmessage LinkedIn suggests using, this approach willmassively optimise the likelihood of the other personconnecting with you.

- Once your new connections have accepted your LinkedIn invitation, you will receive an email to inform you. Donothing for 2 days so you don’t look desperate. After 2days (no longer or the momentum will have fizzled out),make sure you send your new connection a follow-upmessage to thank them for accepting your invitation andsuggest it might be good to get together to share someideas on a subject of mutual interest. Don’t be toospecific. Don’t suggest a venue or particular dates andtimes. At this stage, your new contact is c33% likely torespond positively without feeling under pressure.

- To an extent, this process is a controlled numbers game. The more people you attempt to connect with using thismethodology, the more likely you will meet new peopleand win new clients.



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Many LinkedInusers readrecommendationswith great interestand respect theopinions of others.

LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups are wonderful online meeting places foryou to engage with new people and demonstrate yourexpertise. I would recommend joining Groups that arerelevant to your expertise and also Groups where yourclients are likely to be. This way, you can use Groups tomaintain your knowledge and, in a tasteful way, show off abit. There are many Groups on LinkedIn. If Groups you’re amember of don’t provide you with any benefit, leave themand find others that do. The process of finding the mostvaluable Groups for you involves trial and error.

Once you’re familiar with the format for LinkedIn Groupsand you understand how to use language to postdiscussions that gain a positive reaction, you may wish tobuild your own LinkedIn Group(s). You can create LinkedInGroups to suit an audience (your prospective clients) anddemonstrate your expertise with ease. The key elementsinvolved in the success of building your own LinkedIn Group are:

- Make sure the title of the Group is compelling, authoritative or topical. It needs to contain a phrasethat will make invitees believe the content andexperience of membership will be of major interest andbenefit to them.

- Do NOT overtly brand your LinkedIn Group as your company’s Group. This will put potential members offimmediately as they feel the Group is simply a salesvehicle for your business.

- Ensure that you or someone well known takes on the ‘owner’ role for the Group. This is a figurehead positionbut doesn’t necessitate the ‘owner’ does all (or any) ofthe work.

- ‘Manager’ status should be given to two or three colleagues who understand how to use LinkedIn andunderstand that the LinkedIn Group is a marketingplatform for your business.

- Ensure the Group description acts also as a ‘welcome’ message, is informative and clearly describes thebenefits to members of their participation.

- Pre-load between 2 and 4 ‘discussions’ on the appropriate section so there is already content for themembers to comment on when they first enter theGroup. Make sure these discussion topics are relevant tothe members, give them information, demonstrateyour expertise and encourage them to get involved.

- Once you have prepared the Group, like you would prepare a venue for a function, you need members.

- Using the research method outlined above, create a list of prospective Group members. Make sure that you’vethought about the guest list carefully. Your membersshould be peer-level people, work in the same sectoror have other elements in common which shouldappeal to them as a reason for joining.

- Once you have built your guest list, the invitation should come from the Group ‘owner’. If that is not you, perhapsyou could suggest doing this for them.

- As above, you will need to find the email addresses using your normal research procedures in order to invitethe guests to join the Group, unless you are alreadyconnected to them on the site.



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Engage with new people anddemonstrate your expertise.

- The invitation should be phrased in a way whereby the invitees immediately feel compelled to join andparticipate. The language should not appear to sell yourbusiness but should implicate your knowledge.

- Assuming you get the tone for the invitation right and you have found sufficient, appropriate, prospectiveGroup members, you should be able to encourageenough to join your Group to ensure success.

- Make sure you post relevant discussion topics every week. We recommend a minimum of two newdiscussion topics and suggest posting these on a Fridaymorning because LinkedIn traffic surges on Fridayafternoons.

- Now it’s up to you to reap the rewards of your work and win new customers.

Taking Your New Connections Offline

- Because a LinkedIn connection or acceptance to membership of your Group simply means a person isgiving you permission to speak to them, you need to domore to really benefit and win new customers.

- You need to look for reasons why other LinkedIn members would want to meet you. There are manyclues in participants’ LinkedIn profiles to help youdetermine an approach.

- Make sure you tailor each approach to the individual. There’s nothing worse than receiving amessage from someone and feeling you’ve ‘beenmailshotted’.

- You must use language that is open, not ‘salesy’ and makes the prospect of meeting you seem almostirresistible. An example may say:

“Dear X, I read with interest the comments you madeabout the latest tax legislation in the property sector.I’ve been working with clients who appear to have asimilar profile to yours and may face some of thesame opportunities and challenges you do. You mightwish to hear about our approach and how we’vesaved our clients (squillions) in tax at some stage? Ifthat’s suitable, I’m due to be in Norwich in the nextcouple of weeks and would be happy to meet you ifyou’d like to let me know when you’re available?”

- This approach clearly outlines the benefit to meeting with you. It also gives the recipient the opportunity totell you when suits them best and you’ve used softlanguage such as ‘might’, ‘if that’s suitable’, ‘if you’dlike’ which creates an unthreatening tone and willoptimise the likelihood of success.



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Language shouldnot appear to sellyour business butshould implicateyour knowledge.

Case Studies

Targeted Connections and Selective Meetings

A senior lawyer with a deep industry specialism only wantedto connect with a very rare and specific profile. He wastherefore initially unsure whether there would be manyrelevant contacts on the site for him.

However, when we undertook research on his behalf, wefound 30 decision-makers that he wanted to know and wasyet to have met. Within days, we successfully connectedhim with many of these.

He is selective about those he invests time in meeting but,because of this approach, those meetings are highlyrewarding.

Expanding Your Profile

A tax adviser with industry expertise was keen to build hisbusiness. He has half a dozen large clients who spend around£150k in fees each per annum and his objective was todouble this figure in two years by expanding his portfolio.

Having spent time interviewing this specialist, we thensought out around 80 decision-makers on professionalnetworking sites, within his geography and target industry.

Within a couple of weeks, he was connected with aroundhalf of this group. After five meetings so far with his newconnections, he has already received an invitation to pitchfor around £40k worth of planning work.

Rainmaking

An audit partner wanted to connect with the SMT,regardless of job function, at 12 ‘red flagged’ prospects, tobreak the ice with these companies.

After a week, we’d connected her with Sales Directors, HRDirectors, CFOs and CEOs and had arranged meetings with8 of the 12 targets at which she has built engagement andsought opportunities for her colleagues.

Having used telemarketing, events, publications and all theusual professional services tactics to get close to thesecompanies, the personal approach through a professionalnetworking website was the initiative which finally led tobreakthrough.



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“The personal approachthrough aprofessionalnetworkingwebsite was theinitiative whichfinally led tobreakthrough.”

Setting Up a LinkedIn Group

The Group Owner set up a LinkedIn Group called ‘StrategicSales - Scotland’, aimed at Sales and Marketing andBusiness Development Managers and Strategists in Scotland(all sectors).

The purpose of the Group is to enable members to shareideas and learn from each other. It allows anyone who is a member of the Group to post discussions as well ascontribute to discussions posted by others.

Within one month the group had approximately 100members, with one tenth of members contributing todiscussions.

After six weeks, the Group Owner has arranged fivemeetings with new connections made from the Group.

GOOD LUCK... BUT YOU SHOULDN’T NOW NEED AS MUCH...

I hope the information in this short document has beenuseful for you and you can implement some of our ideasyourself. Some of the opportunities outlined above areincredibly rewarding but we’re aware that they are also verytime-consuming. Partially, that’s why we exist.

Please do get in touch now if you want to hear aboutcase-studies or talk through possible opportunities.

Adam Gordon020 3326 8787 [email protected]



Gordon BDMFounded July 2009

5 FTE (July 2010)

Based in London & Glasgow, UK

Acting for some of the world’s

leading B2B organisations

Adam Gordon, DirectorBDM pioneer

BA Hons 1999, ACIM 2003

NLP Master Practitioner 2010

Ex-Euro RSCG and PwC

Regular LinkedIn speaker

NED

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Documents

Linked In Guide V8